Although Olympic Studios was one of the few original London studios that managed to survive until current times, it is really the era between the sixties and early seventies that established it as one of the greats. This was largely through the work and vision of two men - Keith Grant and Dick Swettenham, combined with an era of great rock and pop artists.

The original Olympic Studios was established in 1957 by Angus McKenzie who had bought Larry Lyons' 'Olympia Studio' in Fulham.In partnership with sound/electronic engineer Dick Swettenham they took over the lease of Carton Hall, a building that had been a former Dutch reform church and a Synagogue in Carton Street, in London's WestEnd.

The studio was based around a tube desk from Olympia but Sweetenham set about replacing this by designing an early transistorised desk. It was installed into Studio One around 1960, along with one of the first 4-track recorders in England.

Keith Grant joined the company in 1958 from IBC studios as a sound engineer.

In 1965 the lease on the Carton Street premises expired and the buiilding was due for demolition. Keith Grant, along with successful vocal group leader Cliff Adams, bought out Angus McKenzie's share of the business and found new premises at 117 Church Road in Barnes.

Byfeld Hall was a truly impressive building both in its facarde, size and up-market location. This new studio was built to be the best and compete with the best in the world, a major undertaking for an independent. It didn't fall short of its aim.

Originally built in 1906 as a Public Hall, Byfeld Hall was also licensed for Stage Plays, Musical Performances, and Dancing. A proper projection room was installed when the Theatre gained a Cinematograph License. The building functioned as a Cinema until 1925 when it was renamed The Barnes Theatre. The building then reverted back to Cinema use again, under the name of the Ranelagh Cinema, until 1941. Guild TV bought it in the late 1950s and converted it into a film studio, a useful transition towards a recording studio.

The new Olympic Studios opened for business in January 1967.

Dick Sweetenham's various electronic designs were amalgamated into what became a renowned desk built for the main studio (Studio 1 ) at the new premises. It used Germanium transistors, locally sorced Lustraphone transformers and inductor based channel eq.

'The form devised by the author at Olympic Studios in about 1964, and hence known as the 'Olympic equaliser' may also be of interest. Its character of sound, given mainly by the shape of the midrange curves arrived at empirically by listening tests, derived originally from the choice of particular inductors available. It could be switched to give a family of troughs in the mid range somewhat sharper than the peaks, thus enabling a few notes in the range of an instrument which stuck out too prominently to be reduced without sucking out too much of the midrange energy of the sound.

Dick Sweetenham

The bass lift section, instead of the more usual shelf levelling and continuing down to perhaps 40hz, was a broad peak boost, originally centred on 250hz which fell back to a very small lift by 60hz so the hum and rumble were not exaggerated. Later versions added a choice of bass peak frequecies'. Dick Sweetenham, November 82.

The Studio 1 desk was initially 16:4 channels, upgraded to 32:8 in 1969 with the arrival of their new 8 track machines. It also had the first A&D F600 limiters fitted into the console.

'There are some desk where, by pure fluke, it actually enhances the sound - Dick Sweetham's first desk at Olympic for example.' Glyn Johns June 81.

In 1969 Dick was 'head-hunted' to build the consoles for the new studios of Chris Blackwell's Island Records in Basing Street, London. A new company Helios Electronics Ltd was established that would also build desks for other major studios. The first two to be commissioned were for The Rolling Stones Mobile and a second desk for Olympic. The Rolling Stones were also among the first clients of Olympic. They ended up recording six consecutive albums at the studio between 1966 and 1972.

The Beatles also worked at the studio to record the original tracks of 'All You Need Is Love' and 'Baby, You're a Rich Man'

Virgin took over the Studio in 1987 and EMI acquired this arm of the Virgin Empire in 1992 and continued to run the Studio until December 2008 when it was finally closed down after the U2 album 'No Line on The Horizon' was recorded there.

"By the time I was at Olympic the original desks were gone but the EQs were put into the Raindirk desk in Studio 3. They all ran on -24 volts and the earliest were made on veroboard and used the early 'geranium' transistors... GET113 comes to mind! Silicon devices were used as soon as they became available and the later modules were much quieter!The last great Olympic desk from Studio 1 was completly rebuilt by myself together with the help of Barry Porter, now sadly gone... It was installed in Petersham church for a while for Keith Grant to record large orchestras with, until it was sold to Henry Hirsch and was installed in a new studio in New York. Every module was rebuilt to the point that I found faults that had never been found before! The dodgy channel 12 fault was traced to poorly aligned holes for the red range connector. I remember Henry looking on in horror as I got a welder in to fill the holes so that I could re-drill them to solve the problem!After the studio shut down the desk was sold to an american dealer and as far as I know, he still has it. Rumours that it had been broken up for the modules are unfounded. Clive Kavan - 2011